Shadowscape: ONA Esoteric Notes XXI

Shadowscape:
ONA Esoteric Notes XXI

(Note: This MS was written for those approaching the stage of Internal Adept.)

Beyond the Individual, Toward the Abyss:

In a somewhat simplified sense, before the Adept there is a concentration on the self: on the desire, the will, the personality, the skill, the Destiny, of the individual. After the synthesis that creates the Adept, there is an increasing awareness of the acausal – of how each individual relates to the acausal.

Part of this acausal awareness is some understanding, and experience, of Aeonics – of Aeonic Magick, and thus of the symbolism, the forms, of such things as Aeons (1). Another part is some understanding of the Nine Angles, of The Star Game, and of what has been symbolized by the mythos of The Dark Gods.

The ONA has stressed again and again – both exoterically and esoterically – that the Adept is only a stage; that what has been called “individuation” is only another beginning; that there is more to genuine magick, to the Seven-Fold Way, than the lower, exoteric magick of individual desire and Destiny; that there is more to existence than the exultation of the “individual”. However, this does not mean some kind of denial of life, of the kind often associated with “white light” groups, organizations and dogma. Rather, it means an expansion of the individual – an awareness, a practical understanding, of the potential that we, as individuals possess. This is a new alchemy – indeed, it is the essence of what genuine alchemy is, and one of the tasks of a genuine esoteric Order such as the ONA is to teach this alchemy, to guide others so that they have the possibility of becoming part of an altogether different species of life than that evident in most who mistakenly dignify themselves as “human”.

In effect, the individual, as existing now – up to and including the Adept – is still bound to the causal, and to the re-presentations, the forms, of the causal, as well as to those symbols and forms which often can presence the acausal, the sinister, in the causal. That is, their perception, for the most part, is still of the flow of cause-effect, of causal time, with all that this implies in terms of “results” and “desire” and “individuality”. Beyond Adept there arises an empathy with the acausal, and thus a knowledge of how the acausal transforms as the acausal transforms, beyond symbolism, forms, names, abstractions, and such things as mythos.

What such things are, beyond, have not been written about, nor will be they written about – they are experienced by the Adept who is moving toward and beyond the Abyss: to and into the experiencing, the knowing, of the acausal devoid of causal “forms”. At best, someone who has gone that way before may guide, or may hint at some things, and that is all. For it is the experience, the knowing, that is important – not the words, of others.

For the Adept, there is an increasing appreciation of the acausal, and one practical aspect of this is the knowledge of how Change occurs, through nexions (2) – and what, in the practical sense, nexions actually are.

That is, there is some understanding of how, sometimes (depending on the nexion and on the particular presencing of acausal energy) such changes as are esoteric are slow, by causal standards, as measured by the causal life-span of individuals. Thus, in the particular case of some Aeonic Magick, the Adept learns how it takes decades, and often a century or more, for the effects of that magick to be “visible” on a scale large enough to produce certain causal, and affective, changes. There arises, thus, the apprehension of the Master and the Mistress – of those who, being beyond the Adept, re-present almost another form of living.

Thus, the Adept also comes to understand how certain causal forms, chosen to effect Aeonic Magick, are only causal forms – that they are not the essence; that they are only like exoteric shells which shells non-Adepts see and which such non-Adepts often confuse for the essence, and indeed often confuse for the aims of a group, an Order, a sinister presencing such as the ONA is. Thus do such non-Adepts mis-understand not only such groups, Orders, but also Aeonic Magick itself, confused as such non-Adepts are by the appearance of the individual, of their self, and mistaking, as they often do, the sinister for such a self, for the desires, the joys, of such a self. In one symbolic sense, Aeonic Magick – and its causal effects – are but an extension of the causal-living which is an individual.

In the personal sense, the Adept is drawn toward the understanding that the sinister itself is supra-personal – not some causal abstraction which they as mere Adepts, can totally “control”. Hence are they moved toward a genuine knowing of the sinister, toward a genuine experience of what is hidden behind such things as The Mythos of the Dark Gods, and thus are they conveyed toward an experiencing of those shadowscapes where such “things” dwell and have Their being.

The Knowing of Forms:

As has been mentioned above, and elsewhere, many times: many non-Adepts, and even some Adepts, sometimes confuse a tactic, a form, for the essence. That is, they fail to appreciate what is being done, and why it is being done. Sometimes, non-Adepts even mistake an Insight Role – undertaken by an Initiate or even an Adept – for the “views”, or whatever, of that Initiate or Adept, and thus castigate that individual! Consider, also, the incitement to action, to disruption, to practical change, which occurs in many of the exoteric (3) ONA MSS, and which sometimes might take place in some Temple (Nexion) or some Sunedrion by such a thing as an individual giving an emotive speech. This individual may even be regarded, in the conventional sense, as “advanced” (that is, beyond Adeptship) and thus may not be “expected” (by non-Adepts) to still use such emotive rhetoric or such forms.

There is, in such circumstances, a rather conventional, non-Initiated projectionism at work here by those who mis-understand such things. That is, a failure to go beyond appearance, and forms, to the sinister essence. A failure to understand that a tactic is just a tactic, which may or may not be useful, and which may be abandoned if it proves to be unsuccessful, or used again if it proves of some value. A failure to understand that such things may be some form of sinister manipulation, or some effect of Aeonic Magick, or even some form of Aeonic Magick itself.

One mark of a genuine Adept is their ability to see beyond such forms, such tactics, to the essence – to the sinister magick often at work in such things. Another mark of a true Adept (and those beyond) – as has been written many times – is the ability to appear as different things: to be a shapeshifter, a chameleon. One mark of a non-Adept is their sometimes willful refusal, or their lack of ability, to distance themselves from their own prejudices, their own views, their own opinions, and from the abstractions they have come to depend on and which they use to “interpret” the world and individuals. Often, such abstractions are inherited from the “society” they live-in, or from some dogma they have accepted, or from some ethos or form which, often without their knowing, holds them in thrall. However, such is the rather low state of most “human beings” that this wallowing in such things – this reliance on such things, this inability to strive toward Adeptship, this lack of perception of the essence, and this lack of knowing the sinister – will continue for some causal time; many centuries, in fact. It is one of the aims of all genuine esoteric Orders and groups to be there to guide, and aid, those who are ready: those who desire to move-on toward the next stage in our development, as beings. Genuine Magick is the means by which they can do this.

Anton Long
116yf

Notes:

(1) It should be obvious to even Initiates that what has been termed the “acausal” is itself but a causal symbol; a convenient attempt to describe what IS, as what IS exists, beyond the confines of the causal time and the causal space we are accustomed to. However, such a symbol, like that of nexions and Aeons, is useful and indeed – at this stage of our development as beings – still necessary. It is the apprehension of the acausal – the numinous symbolization of such things, and the practical experience of them – which mark genuine esoteric Orders, for such an apprehension extends our being, and it is such an apprehension, such symbolism, which places the ONA in its correct relation to other so-called “esoteric” groups – and individuals who claim magickal knowledge and insight – with these groups and individuals being thus understood for what they are: manifestations of the Old Aeon, of all those things that have held us back and which keep us in thrall.

Note here the distinction between a conventional, causal, “dead” abstraction, and what is termed a “numinous” symbol, where “numinous” is to understood in the sense of “real” and/or”living”: that is. imbued with the acausal, with “the sinister”.

(2) Many nexions are a particular manifestation of certain acausal energy – and, depending upon the type of nexion chosen for such a manifestation, such a presencing, this nexion may be said to be imbued with “causal life” – that is, it has, creates, a causal existence; it “lives”, when viewed in one way, and thus changes according to certain laws of such causal (“organic”) change.

(3) Exoteric here – and sometimes elsewhere – is used in the sense of “below Adept” and refers to the outer image cultivated by the Order, which outer image is one reflexion of the sinister essence manifest in the inner ONA. This image is a causal form, related to a specific Aeon.

Some Related Order MSS:

1) Letter to an Internal Adept
2) Return To The Dark: Esoteric Notes XVII
3) The Five-Dimensional Magick of the Seventh Way
4) A Basic Introduction to Aeonic Magick